迷你词

玫瑰不会永远生活，但这种人造丑闻可能。

【宣称】

梅拉尼亚·特朗普挖出了白宫玫瑰园，这是杰基·肯尼迪种植的，并包含了自 1913 年以来每位第一夫人种植的玫瑰。

【结论】

假

【原文】

First lady Melania Trump unveiled a newly renovated White House Rose Garden on Aug. 22, 2020, posting images to Twitter of a neatly manicured space. The news sparked a backlash among those unhappy with the new design.

People shared their opinion about the renovation on social media, alongside images showing the garden before and after the renovation. The “before” images were more colorful, showing spring flowers and crab apple trees in bloom. The “after” images featured more green with white and pastel blooms, and the crab apple trees were gone.

Before and after photographs of newly renovated White House Rose Garden:
courtesy #Getty and @marycjordan pic.twitter.com/w6bzoNHMjC

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 22, 2020

In terms of the claim about Trump’s removing rose bushes planted by every first lady since 1913, McDowell pointed to a landscape report completed in 2020 by the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, noting that flower plants in the garden have continually been removed and replaced.

“Is the garden outside your back door the same as it was 60 years ago? That’s what people are suggesting,” McDowell said, adding, “Roses don’t live that long.”

McDowell also stated that although the idea that current first lady Melania Trump dug up the Rose Garden planted by former first lady Jackie Kennedy made for good internet outrage, that was false framing of the conversation.

It was former U.S. President John F. Kennedy who designed the Rose Garden when it was renovated in 1962, although he tapped his wife’s close friend, horticulturalist Bunny Mellon, to accomplish the task. Mellon recounted that Kennedy approached her about the project after returning from a trip abroad:

He and Mrs. Kennedy had just returned from a state visit to France, followed by stops in England and Austria. The President had noted that the White House had no garden equal in quality or attractiveness to the gardens that he had seen and in which he had been entertained in Europe. There he had recognized the importance of gardens surrounding an official residence and their appeal to the sensibilities of all people.

He wanted to start, in the greatest haste, to remake the area near his office at the west end of the White House, known as the Rose Garden, into an area both useful and attractive. Would I design it for him? It was a startling request to say the least.

Melania Trump said that the 2020 renovation “returned the garden to its original 1962 blueprint designed by Bunny Mellon during the Kennedy Administration.” Trump also said that the renovation improved utilities, infrastructure, and added a paved path, increasing access to the garden for people with disabilities.

The crab apple trees removed from the garden in 2020 were placed in the White House greenhouse and will be replanted elsewhere on the grounds. We sent questions to the White House about where those trees will be replanted and when. We also asked for records showing the original 1962 design referenced in Trump’s statement but haven’t yet received a response.

2020 年民主党总统候选人的历史在竞选中困扰着他。

【宣称】

美国前副总统 Joe Biden 曾经说过，他不希望他的孩子在一个 “种族丛林” 中长大，以消除种族隔离。

【结论】

正确归因

【原文】

In the 1970s, then-Sen. Joe Biden was a vocal opponent of busing as a means for desegregating public schools. And that record haunts him in his bid to secure the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

In early March 2020, readers asked Snopes to verify a quote in 1977 in which Biden, then a U.S. senator representing Delaware, allegedly expressed fear that desegregation, if not done in an “orderly” way, could result in his children growing up in “a racial jungle with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point.”

The quote was initially uncovered by Daria Roithmayr, a law professor at the University of Southern California (USC), in July 2019. But as Biden emerged from Super Tuesday on March 3, 2020, as a potential front-runner for the nomination, news stories containing the quote circulated anew.

Among stories readers widely shared was a July 15, 2019, Business Insider story that reported, “Former Vice President Joe Biden is facing increased scrutiny over his record on busing and racial issues, and this week old comments resurfaced in which he said, in 1977, that busing for the purpose of desegregation would cause his children to ‘grow up in a racial jungle.

The quote is accurate as reported and reads in full:

Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point. We have got to make some move on this.

We contacted the Biden campaign for comment but received no response in time for publication.

Biden made the remark in 1977 during a hearing about busing school children in order to desegregate public schools. As The New York Times reported in a detailed delineation of Biden’s history with busing, Biden at the time had emerged as the Democratic party’s crusader against busing, taking the same side as segregationists. Biden “joined up with Jesse Helms, the segregationist senator from North Carolina, to offer his own anti-busing amendment to that year’s education spending bill.” Biden’s “advocacy made it safe for other Democrats to oppose busing,” The Times reported.

The Times further reported that Biden sided with Helms in 1975 when the latter proposed to strip the federal government’s power to withhold funding from school districts that refused to comply with racial-equality measures:

Under the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare had a powerful tool to fight school segregation: It could withhold funding from districts that refused to integrate — and integration effectively meant busing. Mr. Helms wanted to strip the agency of that power.

As Mr. Biden rose on the Senate floor in September 1975 to embrace that approach, Mr. Helms wryly welcomed him “to the ranks of the enlightened.” Mr. Biden objected to the education department mandating desegregation absent a court order, and warned of white flight to the suburbs and even racial unrest. … Mr. Helms’s amendment, which would have also barred the education department from collecting data about the race of students or teachers, failed. But a slightly narrower measure written by Mr. Biden, which prevented schools from using federal dollars to assign teachers or students by race, passed, 50-43.

Roithmayr told us via email that busing, along with affirmative action, were viewed by those trying to achieve desegregation of schools after Brown v. Board of Education as effective tools. That was “because they were linked to the possibility of ‘big structural change,’ change that didn’t require bigger overhaul, like desegregating cities and restructuring financing for public school education. I suppose expediency is one way to describe it, but effective and pragmatic might be another way.”

Because Biden made the remark about a “racial jungle,” we rate this claim as a “Correct Attribution.”

从凯尔特人伟大的假定报价批评 NBA 球员为他们的亲种族正义抗议。

【宣称】

前 NBA 明星说现代篮球运动员应该停止抗议，只是 ‘闭嘴玩该死的游戏。’

【结论】

假

【原文】

In August 2020, as players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) opted to boycott (i.e., refused to participate in) playoff games in order to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., social media users circulated a meme purportedly quoting former Boston Celtics star Larry Bird as declaring “Back in my day, the game had fundamentals and honored the commander in chief. Now it’s a bunch of radical fundamentalists who dishonor the flag and cross. They only care about looking flashy! Shut up and play the damn game.”:

However, once searches in vain to turn up this statement attributed to Larry Bird (or anyone else) prior to its appearance in this August 2020 meme, or to find any real example of Bird’s speaking publicly about the issue of players’ boycotting NBA playoff games as a form of social protest.

Moreover, Indianapolis television station WTHR contacted the Indiana Pacers (for whom Bird still serves in an advisory capacity), and the Pacers responded that putative quote was “Totally false”:

There’s a false meme circulating on social media which features a supposed quote from Larry Bird concerning today’s NBA players.
I contacted the Indiana Pacers on behalf of WTHR asking if this statement is actually from Larry Bird. The Pacers’ response:
“Totally false.”@WTHRcom pic.twitter.com/kSscSpc9YR

— Carlos Diaz (@CarlosWTHR) August 30, 2020

好像有一个推文所有的东西… 但这并不能使它成为真实的。

【宣称】

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在 2009 年 11 月发布微博说，“奥巴马对整个大流行病的处理非常糟糕！”他 “绝不会让成千上万的美国人在任职期间死于大流行病”

【结论】

假

【原文】

In April 2020, as the death toll in the United States from the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic topped 30,000, an image gained traction on social media that supposedly showed a screenshot of an old tweet from now-U.S. President Donald Trump. In the tweet, Trump appeared to criticize President Barack Obama’s handling of a 2009 pandemic and stated that he would “never let thousands of Americans die from a pandemic while in office”: 

  The tweet read:

Obama’s handling of this whole pandemic has been terrible! As President, ALL responsibility becomes yours during a crisis like this, whether or not you’re entirely to blame. John McCain, and for that matter myself, would never let thousands of Americans die from a pandemic while in office.

This is not a genuine tweet from Trump in November 2009, some seven years before he became president. The tweet does not appear on Trump’s timeline, nor is it included in the Trump Twitter Archive or Fact Base’s archive of deleted tweets. In fact, we weren’t able to find any record of this message prior to April 2020, indicating that this is a modern creation with a falsified date. 

Furthermore, the text of this tweet contains nearly 300 characters. But at the time it was supposedly sent, back in November 2009, Twitter had a limit of 140 characters per tweet.

While the above-displayed tweet is fake, Trump has made similar comments on Twitter. In November 2013, he tweeted that leaders were always responsible no matter what happens:

In contrast, Trump said in March 2020 that, “I don’t take responsibility at all” when asked about the lack of testing in the United States for COVID-19.

Trump has also criticized Obama’s handling of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. On April 17, 2020, Trump tweeted:

While the “Biden/Obama” tweet above is real, it contains many falsehoods.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 12,469 people died in the United States from the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, not 17,000. Obama’s approval rating also wasn’t “disastrous.” A poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News over the course of several months in 2009 showed that Obama’s approval rating for his handling of the H1N1 pandemic ranged from the high 60s to the high 50s. Also, the “Obamacare” website cost much less than $5 billion. 

无生命的物体是不知道它们的移动性。

【宣称】

安娜贝尔娃娃从康涅狄格州沃伦的神秘博物馆逃脱。

【结论】

假

【原文】

On Aug. 14, 2020, a rumor started to circulate on social media that the so-called Annabelle doll, the supposedly supernatural toy that inspired horror films such as “The Conjuring,” had escaped from an occult museum in Connecticut:

The terms “Annabelle” and “Warren Museum” both started to trend on Twitter as social media users posted messages about the demonic doll that purportedly was on the loose. These fears, however, were for naught, as the Annabelle doll did not actually escape from the Warren Museum — it is, after all, an inanimate object.

For those unfamiliar, the Warren’s Occult Museum was a real place and housed some of the artifacts collected by paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The duo are perhaps most famous for investigating a haunted house in New York in 1975. That investigation inspired the book “The Amityville Horror” and several films of the same name. The pair also investigated reports about a Raggedy Ann Doll that was supposedly possessed by a young girl named Annabelle Higgins. This doll, which was later put on display at the museum, also inspired a number of horror movies.

Here’s an image from the New England Society for Psychic Research Facebook page that supposedly shows the real Annabelle doll:

没有什么吸引好奇心像纳粹和性别的一个清晰的组合。

【宣称】

阿道夫·希特勒是第一个充气性玩偶的发明背后。

【结论】

假

【原文】

In late July 2020, readers shared a 2016 blog post with the headline, “Did Adolf Hitler Really Invent the Sex Doll?” The post prompted many curious readers to inquire as to whether the leader of Germany’s Nazi Party did in fact invent inflatable sex dolls, even though the article itself didn’t actually say that.

The article was posted to a website called The 13th Floor, a horror-genre blog which focuses on stories that are creepy and macabre in nature. The 13th Floor post declared that “The Borghild Project was (supposedly) a super-secret attempt to stop the spread of syphilis by providing Nazi soldiers with inflatable sex dolls. That’s right: Hitler invented the blow-up doll!”

However, the writer also acknowledged that the Borghild Project was a hoax: “Sadly, the evidence in support of this having actually happened is sketchy, so it probably isn’t a true story. But ‘Hitler invented the sex doll’ is such an awesome idea, we should pretend it happened anyway. I mean, what’s Hitler gonna do about it now, right?”

The hoax appears to have originated with an undated post by an alleged journalist named Norbert Lenz, who hasn’t published anything else. That article, entitled “The Borghild-project — a discreet matter of the III. Reich,” alleged that the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, Germany, created the dolls, which were destroyed in the Allied bombing of that city in 1945.

We sent an email the museum, which chronicles the history of medicine, asking about the hoax but have yet to receive a response. We’ll update this article if we do.

Laurie Marhoefer, an associate professor of history at the University of Washington, told us in an email that the hoax is built around “very real concerns [Heinrich] Himmler expressed about German men, particularly soldiers and SS men, being able to express their heterosexual sex drives, and also the syphilis prevention measures that the Nazi State took, such as regulated brothels. A lot of governments at the time did something similar. Sex dolls, however, is a hoax.”

Elizabeth Heineman, a professor of history at the University of Iowa and author of the book “Before Porn Was Legal,” told us there’s no evidence inflatable sex dolls were even available during the World War II era.

“The [erotica] customers were overwhelmingly veterans, and the industry had an astonishingly wide array of products on offer,” Heineman told us by email. Catalogs for such items, she pointed out, “were sometimes over 150 pages long by the mid-1950s,” but the items listed among those pages did not include inflatable sex dolls.

“It’s hard to imagine that if sex dolls had existed — if men had memories of them, or if they’d even heard rumors and now wanted to see one since they’d returned to civilian life — they wouldn’t have shown up in the erotica catalogs of the 1950s,” Heineman continued. But, she added, “that’s not proof they hadn’t existed during the war. It’s just to say that they’re not showing up in a place where one would have expected to see them.”

Nonetheless, there is no evidence that Hitler invented the inflatable sex doll, and claims that he did appear to be an urban legend. We therefore rate this claim “False.”

一个病毒性的互联网谣言没有成立的事实。

【宣称】

尸检显示，已故的 “黑豹” 明星查德威克·博塞曼已经死于中毒。

【结论】

假

【原文】

In late August and early September 2020, Snopes readers asked about online posts that claimed actor Chadwick Boseman had been poisoned.

For example, social media users shared a post on the junk site Torontotoday.net that carried the headline, “AUTOPSY: Chadwick Boseman was POISONED, homicide investigation begins.”

There is no evidence that Boseman, who became a cultural icon for playing the superhero T’Challa in the film adaption of Marvel’s “Black Panther,” was poisoned. If it were true that an autopsy indicated that a celebrity of Boseman’s status were potentially murdered, one would expect to see that story reported by most every major news media outlet — and that was not the case here.

Boseman died on Aug. 28, 2020, after a years-long battle with cancer. According to representatives for the actor, he was initially diagnosed in 2016. His passing at the age of 43 sparked a conversation on building awareness about colon cancer, the disease he suffered from.

BLM 运动开始与在社交媒体上使用标签 #BlackLivesMatter 后乔治·齐默曼在特雷冯·马丁的拍摄死亡。

【宣称】

一张照片显示了黑人生命物质购买的巴士 “运送成员去暴乱”。

【结论】

字幕错误

【原文】

Amidst the political turmoil in the U.S. following the May 2020 police custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a meme shared on social media sought to denigrate the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. That meme claimed BLM had raised “over a billion dollars” but had not used that money to provide necessities such as food, housing, or schooling; instead, they had expended it on buying “huge charter busses to transport members to riots”:

As for the first part of the meme, BLM is a “decentralized movement advocating for non-violent civil disobedience in protest against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against African-American people”; it isn’t a centrally organized group that was founded for the purpose of feeding the hungry, providing housing, or funding schooling, nor does it raise money on that basis.

Moreover, the photograph accompanying this meme does not show any buses purchased by BLM “to transport members to riots,” or for any other purpose. The vehicles pictured here belong to the Toronto Raptors professional basketball team, who wrapped their buses with the Black Lives Matter name as a show of support for the movement, as documented on the Raptors’ Twitter account:

Silence is not an option. pic.twitter.com/qpn8sMo2nu

— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) July 9, 2020

The same photograph was used to accompany a CBC article about the Raptors’ arrival at the protected “NBA bubble” training facility at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, where the picture was captioned as follows: “The reigning NBA champion Toronto Raptors arrived at the Disney campus after a two-hour drive from Naples, Fla., where the team has trained for roughly two weeks. The team’s buses were wrapped with its logo and the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ displayed.”

该集团的少数参与者声称是美国陆军的成员。

【宣称】

【结论】

【原文】

Numerous Facebook users who branded themselves as armed vigilantes protecting Kenosha, Wisconsin, shared posts justifying the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse — a white teenager charged with killing two people and wounding another during a protest against police brutality in the lakeside city — and threatened to start violence after his arrest, a Snopes investigation has found.

Despite the social media site’s ban on such discourse by militias and white supremacists, Facebook accounts used a private group named Wisconsin Liberty Militia to discuss plans that included opening fire on “any one that starts rioting” and setting suspicious vehicles on fire.

The police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer in Kenosha on Aug. 23, 2020 sparked nightly protests against racism by American police in the city, and then those gatherings prompted armed counter-protesters, including Rittenhouse, to patrol streets. He was arrested on Aug. 26, in Antioch, Illinois, where he reportedly lives with his mother in an apartment complex, and he was charged with first-degree intentional homicide, among other crimes.

Under the guise of trying to prevent looting and property destruction, the Wisconsin Liberty Militia Facebook group included at least four people who claimed to be members of the U.S. Army, Wisconsin Army National Guard, or U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on their Facebook profiles. Additionally, at least one other user said he did “army shit” while simultaneously being a member of the group, and one of the group’s supposed founders told Milwaukee journalists he was a veteran.

What follows is everything we know about the former online militia group, its members, and its threats of violence on the heels of the alleged killings by Rittenhouse, who was captured in footage carrying a military-style rifle and marching alongside members of various armed groups shortly before the shooting. Several fringe Facebook pages, in addition to the Wisconsin Liberty Militia group, appeared to be dedicated to organizing such gatherings, despite the social platform’s recently expanded policy prohibiting discourse that celebrates or advocates for violence.

Kevin Mathewson, 36, a former alderman in Kenosha, told The New York Times he had organized the Kenosha Guard page during the protests against the killing of Floyd because he felt that the police were outnumbered by demonstrators and could not protect the city.

Per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a post in that group attempted to rally “patriots willing to take up arms and defend [our] City tonight from the evil thugs.” After Rittenhouse’s arrest, Facebook spokespeople told reporters the company did not find a connection between his account and the Kenosha Guard page.

After the deadly shootings, The Verge reported The Kenosha Guard group said it was unsure whether one of its members had fired on protestors but did not disavow the shooting or its perpetrator. “We are unaware if the armed citizen was answering the Kenosha Guard Militia’s call to arms,” the statement read. “Just like with the shooting of Jacob Blake, we need all the facts and evidence to come out before we make a judgement. God Bless and stay safe Kenosha!”

Facebook told journalists that it had received several complaints about The Kenosha Guard page, which had gained more than 3,000 members, before the killings during a protest, but an initial review by site moderators had erroneously left it up, per numerous news reports. By Aug. 27, 2020, Facebook removed the group — much like the Wisconsin Liberty Militia group — under its new rules to ban groups that celebrate or condone violence, or the Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy.

Under that guideline, site moderators ban content they find that “celebrated violent acts, shown that they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behavior,” including pages, groups, and Instagram accounts associated with militias. The policy stated: “While we will allow people to post content that supports these movements and groups, so long as they do not otherwise violate our content policies, we will restrict their ability to organize on our platform.”

When notified of the Wisconsin Liberty Militia group by Snopes, a Facebook spokesperson sent us a link to that policy and wrote, via email: “Thanks for flagging this group to us. We have removed it for violating our new policy addressing militia organizations.”

As of this report, several other Facebook groups with similar purposes remained active on Facebook, such as Militia Wanted Wisconsin and Wisconsin Unorganized Militia. Additionally, according to a Guardian analysis of CrowdTangle data, hundreds of Facebook posts and memes featuring the phrase “Free Kyle” or “Free Kyle Rittenhouse” had garnered more than 70,000 interactions as of Aug. 27, 2020.

如果它被禁止，你就不会看到这个消息…

【宣称】

Facebook 有一项政策，禁止用户发布主祷告的文本。

【结论】

假

【原文】

Two aspects that have long been part of the Facebook social network’s user community are:

1) The sharing of claims that Facebook has imposed a prohibition on the posting of religious material or the expression of religious beliefs.

2) The sharing of material that Facebook has supposedly banned, accompanied by exhortations for other users to do likewise.

Both of those aspects were encapsulated in widely circulated message asserting that Facebook had enacted a policy against allowing the posting of the text of the Lord’s Prayer:

We shouldn’t have to point out — but we will anyway — that users’ repeatedly posting and sharing material that has supposedly been “banned” by Facebook is a self-contradictory effort (because if the material had truly been banned, no one would be seeing it). Likewise, we have found no evidence of Facebook’s engaging in a systematic removal or prohibition of the posting of the Lord’s Prayer on their network.

More on point, however, Facebook’s community standards in general, and the platform’s objectionable content policies in particular, make no mention of prohibiting the posting of the Lord’s Prayer or other forms of religious expression. (Only hate speech directed at a person’s religious affiliation is disallowed under Facebook’s standards.)

不要投两次。

【宣称】

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普告诉人们，他们应该在 2020 年总统选举中投两票。

【结论】

混合物

【原文】

On Sept. 2, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump made a statement about the upcoming general election that sowed confusion. Trump urged voters who cast mail-in ballots to also go to polling places and attempt to vote again on Election Day to “make sure” that their ballot was counted.

The president’s comments resulted in not just confusion, but widespread speculation that the President of the United States had just urged voters to commit a crime. Although Trump did suggest that people who vote by mail may need to again vote in person, his stated purpose was to ensure their ballot is counted, not elicit from them a double vote.

Trump’s statements were both incorrect and potentially harmful to voters, as we will explain below. But first let’s review his exact statement.

Speaking while visiting North Carolina, Trump stated the following.

On your ballots, if you get the unsolicited ballots, send it in and then go make sure it counted, and then if it doesn’t tabulate, you vote. You just vote. And then if they tabulate it very late, which they shouldn’t be doing, they’ll see you voted and so it won’t count. So, send it in early, and then go and vote. And if it’s not tabulated, you vote, and the vote is gonna count. You can’t let them take your vote away. These people are playing dirty politics. Dirty politics.

So if you have an absentee ballot, or as I call it a solicited ballot, you send it in. But I would check it in any event. I would go and follow it and go vote. And everybody here wants to vote. We vote the old fashioned way. You know, we voted in World War I, we voted in World War II, we’re gonna see some great World War II heroes right now. But we voted in World War II. And today they want to give everybody ballots. And every place where they’ve done it, it’s been a mess. It’s been a mess. They don’t know where they are. They don’t know who they’re sending them to, it’s a terrible thing. Follow your ballot and vote. That’s very important, I think everybody understands.

The president’s remarks are captured in this video clip:

After making this statement, Trump followed up with tweets that urged voters to do the same thing on a national scale, prompting Twitter to slap the tweets with warning labels indicating that they violated the platform’s election integrity policy.

Voting by mail will play a significant role in the Nov. 3, 2020, general election due to safety precautions amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Trump has been making comments suggesting mail-in ballots make elections less secure by causing widespread fraud — doubts that are not grounded in fact.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections issued a statement on Sept. 3, 2020, warning voters that voting twice “with intent to commit a fraud to register or vote at more than one precinct or more than one time” is a felony, and that going to a polling place after already casting a mail-in ballot will only increase risk of COVID-19 transmission.

“Attempting to vote twice in an election or soliciting someone to do so also is a violation of North Carolina law,” reads the statement issued by Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

Brinson Bell stated that North Carolina has numerous safeguards in place to prevent double voting and urged people to sign up for BallotTrax, set to launch soon, which will allow voters to track their vote through the mail and confirm that it was received by their county’s election officials.

“The State Board office strongly discourages people from showing up at the polls on Election Day to check whether their absentee ballot was counted,” Brinson Bell said in the statement. “That is not necessary, and it would lead to longer lines and the possibility of spreading COVID-19.”

We asked the state board of elections about Trump’s distinction between “solicited” and “unsolicited” mail-in ballots and were told that none of the state’s voters are receiving “unsolicited” mail-in ballots.

While some advocacy groups and political parties have sent absentee ballot request forms to voters, North Carolina State Board of Elections spokesman Patrick Gannon told us in an email, “No one is receiving an absentee by-mail ballot who did not request one through the proper process.”

Trump’s mention of “unsolicited ballots” is likely a reference to universal mail-in voting, in which states automatically send registered voters mail-in ballots. This system is only in place in nine states and the District of Columbia. North Carolina is not one of them.

社交媒体将 2014 年警方枪击 12 岁黑人男孩 Tamir Rice 的致命案件与 2020 年警方对 17 岁白人凯尔·里滕豪斯的治疗进行了比较。

【宣称】

据模因说，黑人男孩塔米尔·赖斯因持有假玩具枪而被打死，而白人凯尔·里滕豪斯据称用突击步枪杀害两人后被警察走过去，并且能够回家睡觉。

【结论】

大多是真的

【原文】

On Aug. 24, 2020, a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was captured on cellphone video shooting Jacob Blake, a Black man, multiple times as he tried to enter his vehicle. Demonstrations against police brutality erupted in Kenosha on Aug. 25, in reaction to Blake’s shooting. These protests spiraled into chaos when white, armed agitators appeared on the streets. Some, like teenager Kyle Rittenhouse, were accused of shootings.

Memes emerged online comparing law enforcement’s treatment of Rittenhouse — who is white — to that of Tamir Rice — a Black boy shot and killed by police in 2014 after his toy gun was mistaken for a real one.

Snopes readers shared versions of these posts with us and asked us to look into their accuracy. While the two scenarios are glaringly different, especially in their outcomes, most of the claims aligned with the facts in each case.

贩卖人口是世界上一个真正的问题，但许多像这样的传言中概述的计划并非如此。

【宣称】

性贩运者正在用 “1f1b” 等代码将车辆标记为潜在目标。

【结论】

假

【原文】

In August 2020, a photograph showing the figures “1f1b” written on the back window of a vehicle started to circulate on social media along with a warning about an alleged tactic being used by sex traffickers to flag potential targets. Those sharing this meme claimed that this term stood for either “1 female 1 boy,” or “1 female 1 baby,” and that cars were being tagged with these codes by sex traffickers. The meme received a viral boost when it was posted to actor James Woods’ Twitter account:

The text read: 

A very close friend of mine was out today doing shopping with her child at the Bricktown Walmart. When she left the store a lady stopped her and made her aware of what was written on her back window (1f1b) im just going to assume that it stands for 1 female 1 baby. She was then informed that this is now how sex traffickers are tagging cars.. please please mothers, fathers, grandparents.. aunts & uncles. Be AWARE!

Feel free to share! Wont be tagging my friend for personal reasons.

The claims made in this viral social media post are unfounded.

Police in Bricktown, New Jersey, have said that they are unaware of any such activity. But before we get to the police statement about this matter, let’s take a look at the game of telephone that helped this rumor go viral. 

The text of this post states that this happened to a “friend of mine.” When we read a little further, we see that this “friend” was warned about this new criminal tactic by a random stranger. Not a police officer, a news reporter, or even a Walmart employee — just an anonymous “lady.” The original post received a few thousand shares, but this post received far wider circulation. And the farther we moved away from the rumor’s origins, the muddier the details got. One poster, for instance, informed people that this incident took place in Bricktown, Oklahoma City, despite the fact that there is no Walmart in this location.

When we try to boil down this rumor to its origins, we see that the claim is based on something someone saw on Facebook, written by a person claiming that their friend had heard from a stranger that the code “1f1b” was being used by sex traffickers to flag future targets. In other words, this rumor doesn’t exactly have credible origins. 

The local Patch website reported:

Brick Township Sgt. Jim Kelly said the department had not been notified.

“We have no reports for anything like this,” Kelly said.

He also said the department has not been alerted by state or federal authorities of any information that indicates criminals are marking vehicles “as a method for anything.” It’s simply another Facebook rumor without any facts, Kelly said.

This is not the first time that this type of baseless warning has gone viral on social media. In July 2019, for example, we wrote about the false claim that sex traffickers were flagging targets by placing zip ties on houses, mailboxes, or vehicles. In December of that year, a false rumor circulated that sex traffickers were laying down in front of vehicles in order to trick them into stopping. That same month saw the spread of another false rumor holding that roses were being placed on cars to mark potential targets. 

Human trafficking is a real problem in the world, but the schemes described above are not based on any real-world threats. In fact, The Polaris Project, a non-profit that runs the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline, writes that the forced kidnapping aspect of the aforementioned rumors is one of the most prevalent myths when it comes to trafficking:

Myth: It’s always or usually a violent crime.

Fact: The most pervasive myth about human trafficking is that it often involves kidnapping or physically forcing someone into a situation. In reality, most traffickers use psychological means such as, tricking, defrauding, manipulating or threatening victims into providing commercial sex or exploitative labor.

一根病毒线根据三盒欧洲 Sudafed 的模糊照片得出了一系列事实可疑的结论。

【宣称】

2016 年美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在他的特朗普塔办公室的照片，背景有几箱 Sudafed，提供了兴奋剂滥用的可靠证据。

【结论】

假

【原文】

In October 2019, a picture from 2016 of U.S. President Donald Trump eating a taco bowl with the caption “I love Hispanics” re-entered online discourse, this time as evidence that “then-candidate Trump was abusing Sudafed.” The photo — which appears to show three boxes of the name brand nasal decongestant Sudafed in a drawer in the background — is authentic. But claims of his drug abuse stem from a factually challenged Twitter thread.

On Oct. 5, 2019, Twitter user JRehling published a thread that highlighted the Sudafed, identified it as a UK formulation, and then made these points as evidence of a nefarious drug-abuse problem:

• “Sudafed is sometimes used for a high that includes increased alertness … but in order to limit its abuse, regulations were passed.”
• “The desk drawer full of Sudafed, including boxes in New York purchased in the UK indicate that the legal limits of purchase are being circumvented, and that the then-candidate Trump was abusing Sudafed for its high rather than its decongestant effect.”
• “The boxes include a type that is only sold in the United Kingdom, with a different box and distinctive ingredients not found in the U.S.”

These talking points, in turn, were repeated uncritically by several media outlets, most notably Inquisitr, which also suggested the Sudafed was an example of a broader pattern of stimulant abuse by the president. This argument, we show below, is flawed on numerous accounts.

“Sudafed is sometimes used for a high that includes increased alertness.”

Sudafed is a brand name for a series of nasal decongestant and cold medication products. Sudafed products generally come with one of two drugs as their active decongestant ingredient: either phenylephrine or pseudoephedrine. Pseudoephedrine is the more powerful of the two chemicals, and it is this chemical that people sometimes abuse for a high or stockpile to make methamphetamine. As such, its use is regulated in the United States.

Taking at face value the reasonable-appearing claim proffered in that thread that the drugs in the drawer are the product “Sudafed Mucus Relief Day & Night” would suggest that the drug abuse claim is fatally flawed. This formulation contains phenylephrine, which would mean that the drug Trump is allegedly abusing for a high is not capable of delivering such a high in the first place.

“The desk drawer full of Sudafed … indicate that the legal limits of purchase are being circumvented.”

As previously discussed, the Sudafed product at issue here does not contain a chemical with any legal limits on purchase. In the U.S., pseudoephedrine is regulated more tightly than other over-the-counter drugs thanks to the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005. That law imposes monthly limits on retail or online purchases of  pseudoephedrine-containing products and requires the collection of some personal details when purchasing them. Phenylephrine is not regulated under this law, and as such there is no “legal limit” for Trump to be circumventing by purchasing or stockpiling the drug.

“The boxes include a type that is only sold in the United Kingdom, with a different box and distinctive ingredients not found in the U.S.”

Sudafed Mucus Relief contains three ingredients, all of which are commonly found in the United States: paracetamol, phenylephrine, and caffeine. Paracetamol is what Tylenol (acetaminophen), a common drug in the United States, goes by in Europe. Caffeine is ubiquitous in the United States, and often used as an ingredient to enhance the pain-relieving impact in headache drugs like Excedrin. Phenylephrine, as discussed earlier, is the most common over-the-counter decongestant in America.

While the specific formulation of acetaminophen, caffeine, and phenylephrine does not appear to exist as an over-the-counter product in the United States, it would be ridiculous to suggest than any of these three ingredients are “not found in the U.S.,” or to suggest that any of them are used for a high.

Because the central facts used to make the argument that Trump is abusing Sudafed based on this photograph are rooted in fatally flawed logic and incorrect statements of fact, we rank the claim as “False.”

总统唐纳德·特朗普据说向前总统奥巴马发出了一份法案，用于后者离职前的所有假期。

【宣称】

特朗普总统发送前总统奥巴马的假期法案，他带着纳税人的钱。

【结论】

假

【原文】

On 14 February 2017, the web site America’s Last Line of Defense published an article reporting that President Donald Trump had ended “Obama’s vacation scam.”

According to the story, former President Barack Obama had taken funds from the “Office of Presidential Visits and Vacations” to pay for vacations for himself, his family, and two dozen staff members through the year 2036. Once the “scam” was uncovered, the article said, Trump allegedly sent a bill to Obama to repay the money used for those vacations:

Before Obama left office he arranged with the State Department for a series of “official visits” to foreign countries spanning the next 20 years. Using discretionary funds from the Office of Presidential Visits and Vacations, Obama was able to weasel what would have been another $2.1 billion in free vacations for him and up to 24 members of his family plus staff and a dog sitter until the year 2036.

He would have, that is, had he not lost his office to Donald Trump. Trump, who is always looking for ways to save money, was having the office used for vacations repainted with 24 karat gold leaf trim and having the shelves lined with leather when he was presented with a ledger that contained all of the travel plans and expenses. The ledger was found by one of the 31 workers Trump hired from outside the typical White House staff to make alterations requiring specialized craftsmen.

Our President immediately canceled the plans and recalled all Secret Service agents scheduled to protect the Obamas anywhere outside of the United States. The Obamas, who are still waiting in Kenya for their documents so they can re-enter the country, are also facing another new challenge at the hands of Trump: They’re going to have to repay the government for all of those vacations that weren’t official state business.

Of course, there is absolutely no truth to this story. President Obama did not steal $2.1 billion to fund family vacations until 2036, nor did President Trump end his “vacation scam” or send Obama a bill to repay the money.

TheLastLineOfDefense.orghas a long history of publishing false information, and while the web site also reported that the Obamas were “waiting in Kenya” for their documents, the former President was actually with former First Lady Michelle Obama in the British Virgin Islands. On 14 February 2017, Michelle Obama posted a photograph from the beach, wishing her husband a happy Valentine’s Day:

An argument could be made here that Kenya also has beaches, which it does; in fact, its beaches are renowned for their beauty. However, before you conclude that the Obama family is lying about where in the world they are (and somehow fooling the press assigned to cover their stay in the islands), consider the following disclaimer, taken directly from TheLastLineOfDefense.org’s own “About” page:

DISCLAIMER: The Resistance may include information from sources that may or may not be reliable and facts that don’t necessarily exist. All articles should be considered satirical and any and all quotes attributed to actual people complete and total baloney. Pictures that represent actual people should be considered altered and not in any way real.

总统 “已经紧张地确定他的第二任议程将是什么。”

【宣称】

引用米姆重现了美国总统特朗普 2020 年 8 月关于他第二任期计划的声明。

【结论】

正确归因

【原文】

During the build-up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, President Donald Trump was often criticized for his inability to articulate any goals that he expected or hoped to accomplish during a second term in office if he were reelected.

A quote meme from late August 2020 reflected that criticism, putatively quoting the president as saying nothing concrete about his plans for the next four years other than that he would continue doing what he was already doing and would have “other things on [his] plate”:

This meme accurately reproduced a statement from Trump, although the meme’s presenting it without any context made it sound like the statement was the only thing the president said about his plans for the next for years, which was not the case.

On Aug. 26, The New York Times conducted a 40-minute interview with Trump over the telephone, covering his past three-plus years in office and the upcoming election. The Times’ resulting article noted that the president had “strained lately to define what his second-term agenda would be” and quoted him as uttering the words reproduced in the above meme, but it also referenced Trump’s offering “a list of what he has done and would continue to do,” so the president did in fact provide some specifics about what he had, and wanted to, accomplish:

Beyond more of the same, [Trump] has strained lately to define what his second-term agenda would be. Asked at various points, even by friendly interviewers on Fox News, he has offered meandering answers. His fellow Republicans seem no more certain. They therefore dispensed with a party platform altogether, opting instead for a simple resolution of loyalty to the president.

In the interview, Mr. Trump rattled off a list of what he has done and would continue to do, like increasing military spending, cutting taxes, eliminating regulations, reinforcing the border and appointing conservative judges.

“But so I think, I think it would be, I think it would be very, very, I think we’d have a very, very solid, we would continue what we’re doing, we’d solidify what we’ve done, and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done,” he said.

这个头发的任命引起了广泛的争议在 2020 年夏天。

【宣称】

2020 年 8 月，美国众议院议长南希·佩洛西在旧金山的一家沙龙预约了头发，当时美发院因 COVID-19 而被禁止在该市营运。

【结论】

真的

【原文】

In September 2020, several readers asked Snopes to look into the facts surrounding high-profile news reports that claimed U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had visited a hair salon in San Francisco, California, despite a city ordinance that required non-essential businesses to remain closed as part of broader efforts to contain the spread of the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. 

On Sept. 1, 2020, Fox News published an article with the headline “Pelosi Used Shuttered San Francisco Hair Salon for Blow-Out, Owner Calls it ‘Slap in the Face.'” The network reported that:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited a San Francisco hair salon on Monday afternoon for a wash and blow-out, despite local ordinances keeping salons closed amid the coronavirus pandemic, Fox News has learned.

In security footage obtained by Fox News, and timestamped Monday at 3:08 p.m. Pacific Time, the California powerhouse is seen walking through eSalon in San Francisco with wet hair, and without a mask over her mouth or nose … Salons in San Francisco had been closed since March and were only notified they could reopen on Sept. 1 for outdoor hairstyling services only.

… Salon owner Erica Kious, in a phone interview with Fox News on Tuesday, shared details of Pelosi’s visit. Kious explained she has independent stylists working for her who rent chairs in her salon. “One of the stylists who rents a chair from me contacted me Sunday night,” Kious said.

A screengrab of the text message she received from one of her stylists, and obtained by Fox News, said: “I’ll be there at 2:45 tomorrow. Pelosi assistant just messaged me to do her hair.” Kious replied: “Pelosi?” “I was like, are you kidding me right now? Do I let this happen? What do I do?” Kious told Fox News, while noting that she “can’t control” what her stylists do if they rent chairs from her, as “they’re not paying” at this time.

Kious cast Pelosi’s visit as a double standard. “It was a slap in the face that she went in, you know, that she feels that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else can go in, and I can’t work,” Kious told Fox News, adding that she “can’t believe” the speaker didn’t have a mask on. (From the footage, it appears Pelosi had some kind of covering around her neck.) “We’re supposed to look up to this woman, right?” Kious said. “It is just disturbing.”

Even though the restrictions on hair salons were relaxed on Sep. 1, 2020, one day after Pelosi’s appointment at eSalon, it is not the case that the visit would have been allowed if she had simply waited 24 hours.

The new orders, implemented on Sep. 1, 2020, allow hair salons to operate only on the condition that they provide services outdoors, and the document (page 24) emphasizes the requirement for both service provider and customer to “wear a face covering at all times, including during the entire service” — something Pelosi failed to do because she removed her mask for a brief period.

Furthermore, Pelosi had her hair washed during the visit. If that involved the use of shampoo, it would also have contravened the new rules that stipulate “shampooing, chemical hair services, and services that require the customers to remove their face coverings are not permitted at this time.” Her spokesperson’s explanation that Pelosi usually has her hair styled at her home also appears to go against the San Francisco orders. Both the version published on Aug. 14 (on page 18) and on Sept. 1 (on page 17) explicitly forbid hair dressers to “provide in-home services.”

It’s not clear whether, technically speaking, Pelosi herself violated the Aug. 14 orders or if only business owners or service providers can be regarded as being in breach. We asked San Francisco’s COVID Command Center for clarification on that legal question, but we received a non-specific response to the effect that city officials “emphasize compliance over punishment” when it comes to violations of the COVID-19 orders.

Conclusion

Pelosi claimed she was “set up” by Kious, the owner of eSalon, after being advised by DeNardo, the stylist, that her visit was allowed under local rules. DeNardo’s attorney has claimed, on his behalf, that Kious actually authorized the appointment in advance and expressed antipathy towards the speaker of the House.

Nonetheless, it remains the case that on Aug. 31, 2020, Pelosi visited the salon at a time when San Francisco barred hair salons from operating. While there, she briefly removed her face mask, something that would be prohibited even under more relaxed rules that have since been introduced. If she herself did not personally violate the rules, she undoubtedly participated in a violation of them. 

特朗普政府在对移民待遇进行监督的同时，一直把责任归咎于其前身。

【宣称】

奥巴马政府，而不是特朗普政府，在美墨边境建造了收容许多移民儿童的笼子。

【结论】

真的

【原文】

As the well-being of immigrant children in U.S. detention remained a focal point of controversy surrounding the Trump administration in early summer 2019, so did attempts to deflect blame to Trump’s predecessor amid accusations of neglect and mistreatment.

During the previous summer, the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy of separating immigrant parents from their children was so widely rejected by both political parties that even First Lady Melania Trump took the unusual step of repudiating it. In response to the backlash, U.S. President Donald Trump (falsely) pinned the blame for the child-separation policy on his predecessor, Barack Obama.

One year later, amid an ongoing national crisis of conscience over immigrant children incarcerated in detention facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Trump again attempted to pin the blame on his predecessor. During a contentious interview with Spanish-language network Telemundo, Trump wrongly stated that he had reunited families after they were separated by the Obama administration. (In fact, thousands of children were taken from their parents under the Trump administration’s 2018 zero-tolerance policy.)

But then Trump also attempted to deflect outrage over photographs of immigrant children being kept in “cages” by asserting, “Obama built the cages. I didn’t build them. Obama built them”:

That portion of Trump’s commentary was true. Pictures of children behind chain-link fencing were captured at a site in McAllen, Texas, that had been converted from a warehouse to an immigrant-detention facility in 2014. Social media users who defended Trump’s immigration policies also shared a 2014 photograph of Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson, touring a facility in Nogales, Arizona, in 2014, in which the fencing could be seen surrounding migrants there as well. That picture was taken during a spike in the number of unaccompanied children fleeing violence in Central American countries.

Johnson addressed the issue during a June 2019 interview with the non-partisan think tank The Aspen Institute:

Very clearly, chain link, barriers, partitions, fences, cages, whatever you want to call them, were not invented on January 20, 2017, OK. And what’s interesting is Tom Homan made that statement — and under normal circumstances to fact check that, I would have called Tom Homan, who was the director of ICE ERO [Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations] while I was secretary, and say, ‘Hey Tom, did you guys use these things for ICE facilities?

Johnson was referring to comments made by Trump’s former acting ICE Director Thomas Homan (who was director of removal operations at ICE under President Obama). Homan had said during a June 21, 2019, panel discussion hosted by the anti-immigration advocacy group Center for Immigration Studies that “‘The kids are being [housed] in the same facility built under the Obama administration. If you want to call them cages, call them cages. But if the left wants to call them cages and the Democrats want to call them cages, then they have to accept the fact that they were built and funded in FY 2015.”

During the Aspen interview, Johnson said that use of the “cage” detention housing method was supposed to be temporary, and that under the law, children were only supposed to be kept in those facilities for 72 hours before being transferred to the care of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “But during that 72-hour period, when you have something that is a multiple, like four times, of what you’re accustomed to in the existing infrastructure, you’ve got to find places quickly to put kids. You can’t just dump 7-year-old kids on the streets of McAllen or El Paso.”

The chain-link fences, Johnson said, were to separate people by gender and age until they were released or transferred to HHS’s care. They are also present at a detention facility in Clint, Texas.

In early July 2019, as questions about the health of children in border facilities intensified the Trump administration was criticized for locking up young children in “inhumane” conditions for weeks, and for its overall treatment of immigrants in overcrowded detention facilities. Democratic lawmakers who visited the facilities reported unsanitary, dehumanizing conditions. Meantime, at least seven children had died in custody in the span of a year — an unprecedented number in recent history.

The lawmakers’ accounts of what they saw coincided with a news story that revealed a secret Facebook group consisting of Border Patrol agents who “joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas, and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant,” as reported by ProPublica.

Many of the children and families in federal detention are refugees fleeing a wave of violence in what is referred to as the Northern Triangle — Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — with the United Nations reporting that “Current homicide rates are among the highest ever recorded in Central America. Several cities, including San Salvador, Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, are among the 10 most dangerous in the world.”

NPR reported in March 2019 that the number of unauthorized entries into the United States via Mexico had increased twofold over the previous year, filling detention centers beyond their capacities. The majority of those border crossings were by families.

关于福克斯新闻频道在加拿大因报告虚假信息而被禁止的说法是不准确的。

【宣称】

福克斯新闻频道已被禁止在加拿大，因为他们报告虚假信息

【结论】

假

【原文】

Since at least 2011, rumors have circulated claiming the Fox News television channel has been banned in Canada due to their running afoul of Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) prohibitions that make it “illegal to broadcast lies and label it news”:

One prominent example of this rumor stated, for example, that:

America’s middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades — against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News — fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of the Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canadian regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada’s right-wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.

Canada’s Radio Act requires that “a licenser may not broadcast … any false or misleading news.” The provision has kept Fox News and right-wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage, including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the “Fairness Doctrine” in 1987.

It is true that various sections of CRTC regulations prohibit the broadcasting of “false or misleading news” by radio and television licensees, and that in 2011 the CRTC declined to narrow those regulations to apply only to “news that the licensee knows is false or misleading and that endangers or is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.”

However, it is not true that such regulations have kept the Fox News Channel from gaining entry into Canada, or that they were invoked to boot Fox News out of that country after the channel was established there. The CRTC regulations apply only to Canadian broadcasters using Canadian airwaves; they do not apply to the Fox News Channel, which is a non-Canadian entity transmitted via satellite and cable, not broadcast over public airwaves.

Fox Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch was rebuffed in his efforts to establish Fox News Canada in 2003 due to Canadian laws regarding foreign ownership of print and broadcast media, but the CRTC approved an application to bring the Fox News Channel to Canadian digital television line-ups back in November 2004, and that channel is now carried by dozens of different digital providers throughout Canada. (The claimed distinction that Fox News Channel is only allowed in Canada due to its being classified as an “entertainment” channel rather than as a “news” channel is a meaningless one, as those classifications only apply to Canadian media outlets, and Fox is an American company.)

The Fox television network (known as the Fox Broadcasting Company), which is a broadcast entity distinctly different from the Fox News Channel, does not have any affiliates or owned-and-operated stations in Canada, but Fox network programming is carried on cable and satellite providers in Canada and is available over the airwaves through several U.S. stations located near the U.S.-Canada border.

若干主要零售商使用无线电频率识别标签来跟踪库存，而不是客户。

【宣称】

维多利亚的秘密将无线电频率识别标签 (RFID) 芯片放在胸罩里，以便能够跟踪客户。

【结论】

假

【原文】

In the summer of 2020, a rumor was circulated on social media claiming that Victoria’s Secret was secretly placing tracking devices in their bras in order to track customers. 

One iteration of this claim shared on TikTok racked up nearly 3 million hearts. Another version (shown below) was shared on Facebook in June along with the claim that the creator of Victoria’s Secret bought “people’s souls” and that the store was hiding tracking chips in their bras and lingerie to track their customers and target them for sex trafficking:

so the person who created and runs victoria secret buys people’s souls and he has something to do with the sex trafficking going on. did you know that if you cut your tag in half, there is a chip/tracker on the inside. if you don’t want to cut your tag to see, just put it up to the light. shocked (also tell me why the trackers are ONLY in bras and lingerie?? not shirts, sweatpants, ONLY lingerie)

These claims were all false. 

Victoria’s Secret does use radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips in some of its products, but this practice isn’t particularly unusual or nefarious. RFID chips are used to track inventory in a store. They can also be used for theft prevention, as they can set off an alarm if stolen merchandise passes through a scanner at a store exit. But these chips are not used to track customers or products once they leave the store. 

A spokesperson for Victoria’s Secret told Reuters: “Like many other retailers, this technology helps us deliver a great store experience by ensuring we have the right products available for our customers. We only use this technology in our back room and sales floors to help us manage inventory so that our associates can efficiently support our customers’ needs.”

But Justin Patton, director of a RFID lab at Auburn University, told The Associated Press that Victoria’s Secret was using a “passive UHF RFID tag.” These tags only have a range of a few meters. Furthermore, these tags don’t have any sort of battery in them, meaning they are only of use within range of a scanner. 

Patton said: “That is a passive UHF RFID tag. They are commonly used in retail for counting inventory. However, most UHF tags have no use after purchase, and can be removed after purchase.”

Major retailers such as Walmart, Macy’s, and Target have been using similar tags for years. Keri Jones, Target’s executive vice president of global supply chain and operations, explained how the store would used RFID tags in a 2015 blog post:

In fact, developing the kinds of behind-the-scenes technologies that quietly help Target stay ahead of guests’ changing behaviors can be the most exciting. Technologies like Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)—which I’m thrilled to announce Target will roll out later this year.

We’re now working with key vendors on a fast-tracked timeline to begin inserting a “smart label” on price tags that will help Target improve our inventory accuracy and enhance our ability to keep stores in stock.

You probably wouldn’t notice these new RFID tags on your own, necessarily, but that’s the point. This unobtrusive but significant technology will increase efficiencies by providing greater visibility into our inventory. That means guests will better be able to find out whether we’ve got the item at their Target store or at others nearby. We also expect RFID to help us better fulfill online orders placed for store pickup, which already account for 15 percent of Target.com purchases.

Victoria’s Secret is not secretly hiding microchips or tracking devices in bras in order to track customers as part of a sex trafficking scheme. These RFID tags are commonly used in the retail industry in order to prevent theft and manage inventory. 

保守的网站和评论员在 2020 年夏天泄露了内部检控指引。

【宣称】

在内部准则中，加利福尼亚州 Ctra Costa 地区检察官 Diana Becton 表示，抢劫是可以接受的，如果嫌疑人 “需要” 被盗物品，则不会被起诉。

【结论】

假

【原文】

In August and September 2020, readers asked Snopes to examine the accuracy of online articles that claimed a California prosecutor had indicated looting was acceptable in cases where the individual involved “needs” the items stolen. 

On Aug. 30, 2020, the Organic Prepper website published an article with the headline “These People Want to Convince Everyone That Looting is A-Okay.” The article contained a section with the heading “Looting is Okay if They ‘Need’ the Item,” claiming that:

According to a document obtained by Red State News, Diana Becton, the district attorney of Contra Costa County, California, has changed up how looters are charged during a state of emergency.

“Theft Offenses Committed During State of Emergency (PC 463)

In order to promote consistent and equitable filing practices the follow[ing] analysis is to be applied when giving consideration to filing of PC 463 (Looting):

1. Was this theft offense substantially motivated by the state of emergency, or simply a theft offense which occurred contemporaneous to the declared state of emergency?

a. Factors to consider in making this determination:

i. Was the target business open or closed to the public during the state of emergency?
ii. What was the manner and means by which the suspect gained entry to the business?
iii. What was the nature/quantity/value of the goods targeted?
iv. Was the theft committed for financial gain or personal need?
v. Is there an articulable reason why another statute wouldn’t adequately address the particular incident?”

Oh. Well. If you need those shoes and purses, then it’s totally different…

On Aug. 31, 2020, conservative talk show host Ben Ferguson posted a Facebook meme composed of a screenshot of Red State’s headline (“Soros DA Diana Becton Requires Officers Consider Whether a Looter ‘Needed’ Stolen Goods Before Charging”), along with his own summary of Becton’s position: “So now it’s okay to loot as long as you ‘need’ it?! … This is sick!”

Prosecutors routinely exercise broad discretion in deciding whether to charge individuals suspected of having committed crimes, and how to charge individuals who may have committed several criminal offenses in one action. The factors that influence those decisions are complex and manifold, but prosecutors often weigh the strength of the evidence available, the resources available to them to take upgraded offenses to trial, as well as less tangible considerations, such as political or public pressure, or the broader “interest of justice.”

Due to the existence of that discretion in the decision of whether to upgrade theft or burglary charges to looting, it makes sense for a prosecuting agency to attempt to mitigate against any inconsistencies or biases in the decision-making process. Hence the guidelines issued in June. 

In an emailed statement, Becton’s spokesperson told Snopes:

“We evaluate all possible factors in reviewing whether or not to file criminal charges. We always have an ethical responsibility to ensure when filing a case we can meet the high burden of proving the case to a jury and prove the facts underlining the alleged criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The factors outlined in the policy are similar for our review of [other] criminal offenses — examining the intent and reasons why a crime was committed along with all the other available evidence.”

The function of Becton’s document was to provide her prosecutors with black-and-white guidelines in order to help them decide whether to charge an arrested person with looting, or charge them with the underlying burglary or theft offenses. It was simply not the case that the document required or even advised prosecutors not to go ahead with a looting charge if the suspect was found to have been motivated by “personal need.”

It was also not the case that suspects would go free entirely if a prosecutor decided not to charge an individual with looting, after considering the five factors set out in the guidelines. In that scenario, the individual would still be charged with the underlying offense of burglary or theft, just not the upgraded charge of looting.

Thus the Daily Wire erred in claiming that Becton’s guidelines required law enforcement “to consider if looters needed their loot before the police charged them with a crime.” Similarly, the blog USSA News falsely claimed that Becton had “openly admitted that she’s going to look the other way at looting in her jurisdiction as long as the people involved can prove they needed the Louis Vuitton purse and weren’t stealing it for personal gain.”

对唐纳德·特朗普指控他强奸了一名 13 岁女孩的民事诉讼于 2016 年 5 月在加利福尼亚州被解雇，2016 年 6 月在纽约重新提起，2016 年 11 月再次下降。

【宣称】

【结论】

【原文】

In late April 2016, rumors began to circulate online holding that Republican presidential Donald Trump had either been sued over, or arrested for, raping a teenaged girl. One of the earliest versions of the rumor was published on 2 May 2016 by the Winning Democrats web site, which reported that woman using the name Katie Johnson had named Trump and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in a $100 million lawsuit, accusing them of having solicited sex acts from her at sex parties held at the Manhattan homes of Epstein and Trump back in 1994 (when Johnson was just 13 years old):

The first major scandal to hit the Trump campaign besides the typical “what a racist, such a sexist, yada yada yada,” came from a lawsuit stemming from the infamous sex parties held by billionaire and known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The woman named in the suit is Katie Johnson, who says Trump took her virginity in 1994 when she was only 13 and being held by Epstein as a slave.

Johnson says in the complaint that Trump and Epstein threatened her and her family with bodily harm if she didn’t comply with all of their disgusting demands. The Trump campaign has been on this immediately, calling it absolute nonsense and not even remotely true or possible.

Many aggregated reports cited a 28 April 2016 article that described the circumstances under which the lawsuit had been filed:

Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is fighting what could be the biggest election season bombshell yet — explosive court claims that he raped a woman when she was a teen.

The woman — identified as Katie Johnson — filed documents in a California court on April 26, accusing Trump and billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein of “sexual abuse under threat of harm” and “conspiracy to deprive civil rights,” RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.

She filed the lawsuit herself — without legal representation — and is suing for $100 million.

A copy of the California lawsuit (filed on 26 April 2016) shared via the Scribd web site outlined the allegations, which included the accusation that Trump and Epstein had (over 20 years earlier) “sexually and physically” abused the then 13-year-old plaintiff and forced her “to engage in various perverted and depraved sex acts” — including being “forced to manually stimulate Defendant Trump with the use of her hand upon Defendant Trump’s erect penis until he reached sexual orgasm,” and being “forced to engage in an unnatural lesbian sex act with her fellow minor and sex slave, Maria Doe, age 12, for the sexual enjoyment of Defendant Trump” — after luring her to a “series of underage sex parties” by promising her “money and a modeling career”:

The filing also included a statement from “Tiffany Doe” (i.e., the woman referenced in plaintiff’s statement above who brought her to the parties) attesting that:

I personally witnessed four sexual encounters that the Plaintiff was forced to have with Mr. Trump during this period, including the fourth of these encounters where Mr. Trump forcibly raped her despite her pleas to stop.

I personally witnessed the one occasion where Mr. Trump forced the Plaintiff and a 12-year-old female named Maria [to] perform oral sex on Mr. Trump and witnessed his physical abuse of both minors when they finished the act.

It was my job to personally witness and supervise encounters between the underage girls that Mr. Epstein hired and his guests.

A video reportedly featuring “Katie Johnson” (her identity hidden through the use of facial pixillation, a long blonde wig, and an electronic voice distorter) appeared online, in which she graphically described giving Donald Trump a hand job and being raped by him:

 
There is little doubt that Donald Trump knew Jeffrey Epstein, as Trump acknowledged in a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein:

Epstein likes to tell people that he’s a loner, a man who’s never touched alcohol or drugs, and one whose nightlife is far from energetic. And yet if you talk to Donald Trump, a different Epstein emerges. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump booms from a speakerphone. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Epstein had been named in multiple similar lawsuits over the previous several years, served 13 months in jail, and was registered as a sex offender for life:

Billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has paid another accuser.

The 56-year-old money manager has quietly settled with Jane Doe 102, an unnamed woman who alleged in federal court in Florida that Epstein had induced her to “serve his every sexual whim” from the time she was 15 until she was 19. The woman also claimed Epstein had flown her around the world, paying her “to be sexually exploited by [his friends] … including royalty, politicians, academicians [and] businessmen.”

Epstein flatly denied those charges. But a source close to the financier confirms “the matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties.” The woman’s lawyer, Robert Josefsberg, wouldn’t say how much she’s getting. Epstein had in the past offered accusers a minimum of $150,000.

Epstein has settled at least two other civil suits but still faces more than a dozen from women who claim he sexually abused them as minors at his Palm Beach mansion.

As of now, all of the information about this lawsuit comes solely from the complaint filed by “Katie Johnson,” and no one has as yet located, identified, or interviewed her. She was scheduled to appear at a press conference on 2 November 2016 but didn’t show up, asserting that threats to her life kept her away. She reportedly dropped the lawsuit again on 4 November 2016 for the same reason.

为了抹黑 LGBTQ 社区，创建了一个令人惊恐的宣传。

【宣称】

为使 “年龄流动性” 正常化，现已作出协调一致的努力，使恋童癖者能够合法地与儿童建立身体关系。

【结论】

假

【原文】

In July 2020, an old and debunked rumor claiming that pedophiles were attempting to normalize “age fluidity,” an invented term for a fictional medical condition in which a person self-identifies as a younger age in order to engage in physical relationships with children, was recirculated on social media.

This rumor was often shared in the form of a text post. Here’s an excerpt from one popular iteration:

While we are arguing over the efficacy of masks, a vile group of people are trying to make pedophilia a sexual orientation and believe it is 100% ok to be age fluid.

I just discovered age fluidity last night. Being age fluid means that a full grown man could “identify” as an 8 year old boy…OR an 8 year old girl if he is also feeling gender fluid on any particular day. So, if a 50 year old man “identifies” as an 8 year old girl, and is attracted to an 8 year old boy, then these sickos feel it is natural and should be legal for him to act on those feelings.

This is inaccurate. No concerted effort exists to normalize “age fluidity” as a way for adults to engage in sexual relationships with children. This is transphobic hoax that was created in an attempt to smear the LGBTQ community by linking them to pedophilia. 

This smear is not a novel one. In fact, there have been repeated attempts to spread the long-disproven idea that homosexuality is linked to pedophilia, despite the lack of scientific proof to support this claim. 

In 2017, for example, a false rumor was circulated on social media claiming that the LGBTQ community was working to change their acronym to “LGBTQP,” with the “P” standing for “pedosexual.”  In 2018, a troll Tumblr page created and spread a pride flag for “MAPS,” a  term meaning “Minor Attracted Persons,” and falsely claimed that the group was earning currency with the LGBTQ community. 

The above-displayed meme, which was created from a stock image of a “father talking with son silhouette” (the white outline of a little girl was not present in the original image), started circulating on social media circa early 2017. At the time, a troll campaign was underway by bad actors who were falsely claiming to be “clovergendered,” an imaginary medical term that supposedly referred to a person whose mind stopped developing at a young age. These “clovergendered” people were now adults, but since their minds stopped developing at a young age, they claimed it was acceptable for them to be attracted to minors. 

One 4chan thread from Dec. 31, 2016, informed social media users that they were creating a “new gender” to troll “social justice warriors” and defined “clovergender” as “a child trapped in a man’s body who is attracted to other children.”

The Twitter account @clovergender, which has since been suspended, was one of the first to start sharing the “Age Fluid” meme shown above. 

This meme was created as part of a troll campaign that aimed, in part, to spread the repeatedly debunked notion that a link exists between the LGBTQ community and pedophilia. Live Science addressed this persistent myth about homosexuals in a 2011 article, writing:

An especially pernicious myth is that most adults who sexually abuse children are gay. A number of researchers have looked at this question to determine if homosexuals are more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals, and the data indicate that’s not the case.

For example, in a 1989 study led by Kurt Freund of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Canada, scientists showed pictures of children to adult gay and straight males, and measured sexual arousal. Homosexual men reacted no more strongly to pictures of male children than heterosexual men reacted to pictures of female children.

A 1994 study, led by Carole Jenny of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, surveyed 269 cases of children who were sexually molested by adults. In 82 percent of cases, the alleged offender was a heterosexual partner of a close relative of the child, the researchers reported in the journal Pediatrics. In only two out of 269 cases, the offender was identified as being gay or lesbian.

In short, no concerted effort exists by any group to normalize “age fluidity” in order to legally engage in sexual relationships with children. This is a transphobic piece of anti-LGBTQ propaganda that originated in 2017. 

在 Facebook 上流传的模因似乎是 2013 年另一个版本的重新散列。

【宣称】

美国众议院议长南希·佩洛西通过了一项法案，该法案将帮助她的丈夫通过出售联邦拥有的美国邮政局财产获利。

【结论】

假

【原文】

In late August 2020, readers inquired about a meme circulating on Facebook that claimed falsely that U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had rigged legislation to help her husband benefit financially from selling off property belonging to the U.S. Postal Service.

The meme’s text reads:

This is Paul Pelosi (aka, Nancy’s Husband). He owns Financial Leasing Services LLC, a San Francisco based Real Estate and Venture Capitalist Firm. His net worth is 120 million. Why is this important? His wife sits on the “House Appropriations” committee. This committee appropriates funds to the United States Postal Service ( and others). Why is this important? Easy. She passed a bill to sell off 9 billion dollars ( yes 9 BILLION WITH a [smile emoji] worth of FEDERALLY OWNED POST OFFICE PROPERTY AND AWARDED THE THE CONTRACT TO, none other, Financial Leasing Services LLC. Her husbands firm. Why is this important? The commissions rate was set at 9%. That is almost a 1 BILLION dollar contract. If that’s not enough, let’s look at the new stimulus package. Nancy wants 25 billion in the stimulus package for the postal service where only 1.25 billion goes to making sure voting ballots are legit. The other 23.5 billion is going to “upgrading” the facilities so they are more attractive to potential buyers for her husbands firm. Corrupt to the core.

It’s true that Speaker Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi owns and operates Financial Leasing Services, a San Francisco-based investment company. Financial disclosures in 2018, the most recent available, show Speaker Pelosi’s estimated net worth to be $114 million.

But Speaker Pelosi doesn’t sit on the House Appropriations Committee. Her spokesman Drew Hammill told us by email she hasn’t been on the committee since 2002. Furthermore, we found no evidence that a bill to sell off $9 billion-worth of federally-owned U.S. Postal Service property exists.

It’s true that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would, if signed into law, provide $25 billion to shore up the Postal Service and rectify delays in mail delivery service, but it doesn’t allocate $1.25 billion toward “making sure voting ballots are legit.” The funding was originally on the table during negotiations over a coronavirus stimulus package, but those negotiations broke down. Whether the stand-alone Postal Service funding bill will be signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump seems unlikely.

The meme seems to be a rehash of a similar one that dates back to 2013 — except in that case the subject of the claim was Richard Blum, the husband of U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., who like Pelosi hails from San Francisco.

这不是第一次洛杉矶惊喜！娃娃一直受到争议。

【宣称】

放置一个洛杉矶的惊喜！在水中的娃娃将揭示在娃娃的身体上的内衣。

【结论】

大多是真的

【原文】

In August 2020, another bout of outrage engulfed the internet as social media users complained that L.O.L. Surprise! dolls secretly displayed “lingerie” on the dolls after they had been dipped in water. This controversy came on the heels of similar accusations that were levied against the toy company Hasbro for a poorly placed button on one of its Troll dolls, and unfounded and false allegations of sex trafficking against the furniture company Wayfair.  

The complaint against L.O.L. dolls — “L.O.L.” stands for Little Outrageous Littles — involved the toys’ “color changing” feature when placed in cold water. A video posted on Facebook on Aug. 11 racked up more than 24 million views within a few days of its initial posting:

The visuals in the above-displayed video appear to be genuine. Several other social media posts document similar changes, such as this Reddit post from 2019:

Some people may feel that these dolls are inappropriate for children. However, this controversy isn’t new for 2020. The above-displayed examples all involved naked dolls (L.O.L. dolls typically come with various clothing items that also change color), and this “secret” lingerie doesn’t appear on all of these toys.

A 2019 L.O.L. doll commercial shows another example of these toys changing colors.

Here’s a before-or-after image from the commercial. (In addition to this doll’s swimsuit and hair changing colors, the doll also gets some new markings on her body. There is also smeared makeup around the eyes, and gold designs on the neck, arms, and legs):

L.O.L. dolls were created by MGA Entertainment, the same company that makes Bratz, another line of dolls that has been criticized for being too sexual for young audiences, back in 2016. An article in The Atlantic that examined the “strange phenomenon” of these dolls noted that MGA Entertainment created this line of toys to capitalize on the YouTube “unboxing” fad. Not only could children unwrap their toys on video, but they could also show off whatever “surprise” feature was included with their dolls. 

L.O.L. Surprise! dolls were created by MGA Entertainment, the company behind the oversexualized plastic Bratz Dolls that were a hit in the early 2000s. Isaac Larian, the CEO, told me in an email that L.O.L. dolls were essentially reverse engineered: The company wanted to cash in on the unboxing and collectibles trends, and so it came up with L.O.L. dolls. MGA Entertainment was told, at first, that kids needed to see a product before they would ask for it, Larian said. But L.O.L. dolls proved analysts wrong—kids can apparently want things without even knowing what they are. MGA Entertainment has since branched out into L.O.L. Surprise! pets, L.O.L. Surprise! houses, and larger L.O.L. Surprise! capsules, which contain dozens of dolls and accessories and retail for about 80 bucks.

L.O.L. dolls have been subject to controversy before. In December 2019, some parents complained that the company’s boy dolls were “anatomically correct.” 

MGA Entertainment CEO Isaac Larian defended the toys during an appearance on Fox Business, saying:

“Human beings are anatomically correct. I think we’ve got to teach our children from an early age about their body parts. I see nothing wrong with that.

[…]

“We openly say on the package and on our advertising, ‘These are anatomically correct boy dolls,’ and [parents] have a choice not to buy it.”

To sum it up, some L.O.L. dolls are designed to change colors when they are dipped in water. This color change can affect the doll’s clothes, clothing accessories, hair, and the doll’s skin. When these dolls are not wearing clothing and are dipped in water, it’s possible for this design to resemble lingerie. While this may be news to some social media users in 2020, these dolls have been around for several years, and the marketing material for this product mentions this color-changing feature. 

在共和党大会上面具或缺乏面具成为 2020 年总统选举期间政治党派的一个点。

【宣称】

在华盛顿特区举行的 2020 年共和党国民大会上，数百人无视戴面具和社会距离的建议，因为特朗普正式接受共和党提名。

【结论】

真的

【原文】

As the U.S. geared up for the 2020 presidential election, the unprecedented Republican National Convention (RNC) event held at the White House took center stage as images of the large gathering shared online appeared to show hundreds of attendees sitting side by side and without facial coverings in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Shortly after the Aug. 27 event, a photo that showed the White House lawn packed with people was shared to Twitter and went viral in the days that followed. Snopes readers asked our team to verify whether RNC attendees ignored social-distancing and mask-wearing recommendations put out by leading health officials earlier in the year.

This is like one of those scenes from Back to the Future II after Biff steals the sports almanac and becomes the most powerful person in the world pic.twitter.com/rkBMTpMDqB

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) August 28, 2020